


wow. youre like a fucked up butterfly

by pocketpauling



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom
Genre: M/M, ah fuck. is it gay to kiss a man as hes bleeding out, contrary to the title and description this is a very serious fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketpauling/pseuds/pocketpauling
Summary: like if butterflies were somehow worse than caterpillars.aka gordon lost a hand and is bleeding a lot and is struggling to take his stupid hev suit helmet off and tommy feels a whole lot of awful about it.
Relationships: Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 10
Kudos: 148





	wow. youre like a fucked up butterfly

**Author's Note:**

> sorry its lowercase its not my FAULTTTTTT 
> 
> freelatta discord you gave me brainworms thinkin abt gordon havin the helmet on for most of the res cascade. fuckers. make me sad.

there is an inherent intimacy to watching a man bleed to death. because there has to be. it has to be intimate, the way that tommy’s watching a mass of metal and tubing struggle to breathe - give any indication that it’s something more than a machine, that it’s piloted by someone human, something that could bleed like the rest of them. that it was still gordon, the one from the breakroom, laughing at posters and papers stapled onto a corkboard with him.

it’s been hard to tell, over the gunfire. over the death and destruction, the bodies of people tommy used to pass in the halls. people he promised himself he’d speak to someday, gone forever.

but gordon’s here. he’s here, under all that metal, somehow still clinging to who he is. through everything, he’s still clinging to being a human being. it’s more than tommy can say for the rest of their little team.

he doesn’t help him up off the concrete. 

he does watch, a little helplessly, as gordon struggles to push himself back against the wall. watches even more helplessly as gordon rambles to him about what happened, and tommy, ever helpless in stressful situations, tells him about beyblades, or something - he doesn’t quite catch what comes out of his own mouth.

the strangled laughter tells him it wasn’t right, probably, but he can’t look away from gordon’s missing hand long enough to answer the questions properly. as much as he wants to hold this conversation, for gordon’s sake, he’s incapable of processing it all correctly.

bubby and benrey, and, by extension, coomer - they hadn’t even cared enough to stick around. they hadn’t even tried to stay back, to find gordon, to make sure he was fine. not really. they’d split up, the group had fallen clean apart, and tommy just wanted to confirm to himself - because if gordon was dead, he wanted to know. it was worse going through the possibilities in his head, every timeline where gordon had survived and tommy hadn’t known. every timeline where gordon struggles through black mesa as far as he can with a missing hand. 

every time they found each other again, like this. and tommy would offer some stupid excuse, and gordon would accept it, no matter what it was, because he trusted him more than tommy could ever deserve. and tommy would feel worse.

he feels worse, watching gordon struggle to pull at the latches on the sides of his helmet with only one hand - and tommy thinks about how he’s really only seen the man’s face once, somewhere that felt like miles away. years ago. certainly not this week. certainly not in this hell.

the latches need two hands. they have to be unlocked at the same time. gordon’s breathing kicks up to panic, and tommy gets the feeling he should be helping.

he shuffles forward, to where gordon’s pushed up against the wall, and silently offers a hand. and, by that, it means he doesn’t really indicate to gordon that he’s about to be helping at all - he just crouches down, hands on both sides of the helmet, finds the latches from training, and clicks them open. tries to ignore the flinch as he does so.

there’s no hiss, like space suits, or cliché science fiction. it’s just metal, and it acts the same as any metal tommy’s ever seen.

shiny, cold. makes a very loud sound when it hits the concrete floor. it’s metal. it’s not gordon.

what _is_ gordon is the near-dead person underneath. so alarmingly human it makes his heart hurt - the bruise on his left cheek, the dried blood around his mouth, it’s all a terrible reminder that he’s been here this whole time, not just a robot or a disembodied voice. he’s here, and tommy let this happen, they _all_ let this happen. to a guy with a kid, a guy who likes ice skating and _terrible_ video games. a guy who still managed to joke around with them, through everything. a guy who cared about them more than anyone else tommy had ever met.

gordon can’t quite focus his eyes well enough to look at tommy dead-on. it’s a good try, though, and it’s nearly enough to make tommy wish the helmet was back in place, until gordon laughs, a little breathlessly, and tries to get through a thank you. and tommy laughs back at him, kind of, but he doesn’t find it funny. he doesn’t think any of this is funny, and he suspects gordon doesn’t either.

and he’s caught, now, because as much as he wants to get gordon to safety, he can’t move away. he didn’t know he missed seeing him until now, until he’s able to remember that, yeah, gordon’s eyes _are_ green - and he’s got a gap in his front teeth, and freckles, and he’s got his ears pierced and everything.

and tommy has had a lot of feelings about this guy, from the crush in the breakroom to now. nearly dying a hundred times over will do that. and tommy doesn’t know if gordon will make it out of here - hell, he doesn’t know if _he_ will, either. there’s blood pooling on the floor, seeping into the edges of his lab coat and staining it a bright red all over again, there’s the ticking of the hev suit’s geiger counter - even with it all, tommy just wants to stay here.

his hands go from gordon’s shoulders to his cheeks, to keep his head up, make sure he’s conscious - because he’ll lolling to the side a bit, now - and tommy would find it adorable if he didn’t know the cause. and, still, somehow, there’s a part of him that melts at the way gordon tries his hardest to lean forward into it. the way he tries his hardest to put his hands - _hand_ \- on tommy’s wrist. his forearm. the collar of his coat, pull him forward so that they’re breathing the same air.

it’s a question. tommy hopes he’s reading the question right, when the answer he comes up with is to close the gap and kiss him.

the kiss is almost certainly the worst tommy’s ever experienced - not that gordon is a bad kisser, but he can taste blood, can feel him shaking, just slightly, knows he’s already struggling to breathe as it is. so it ends up being a second. a moment that feels like it should have been so much more, something special, something that wasn’t teetering on the edge of death, stained with blood, diseased and amputated. cut short. rushed. afraid.

he wishes he could stay here. that there wasn’t a missing hand to worry about. no blood loss. he wants to lace their fingers together, listen to gordon talk about joshua. wants to kiss him again, and again, and again, _really_ kiss him, like they’re coworkers, still - like it’s an HR nightmare waiting to happen, kissing in supply closets and flirting over lunch breaks.

he wants to know him. wants to be as close as possible, without all the death. he hopes to god there’s a timeline that lets it happen.


End file.
